Tag Archives: Daniel Davies

Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 3.21 “Thrill Show”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Mondays, I will be reviewing CHiPs, which ran on NBC from 1977 to 1983.  The entire show is currently streaming on Prime!

This week’s episode is all about the thrills!

Episode 3.21 “Thrill Show”

(Dir by Gordon Hessler, originally aired on February 23rd, 1980)

Bonnie (Randi Oakes) has a decision to make.  Her ex-boyfriend and mentor, Ray (John McCook, of Bold and the Beautiful fame) has come to Los Angeles and is trying to convince her to quit the force and join him as a member of the Joie Chitwood Thrill Show!

The what?

I have to admit that I had no idea what the Joie Chitwood Thrill Show was but all of the police officers were really excited about it and the episode’s storylines all came to a halt for ten minutes so we could have an extended sequences of drivers doing stunts.  I assumed that the Joie Chitwood Thrill Show was a real thing and a quick check with Wikipedia confirmed that I was correct.  (In fact, Chitwood played Charlie, James Bond’s unfortunate driver in Live and Let Die.)

While Bonnie struggles with her future, Baker and Ponch pursue the members of a rock band who have been robbing tourist buses so that they can raise the money to record their first album.  Hell yeah, that’s taking control of your future!  The leader of the band was named Malcolm and he was played by Paul Nicholas, who also played Peter Frampton’s brother in Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.  Whatever else you may think of that film, Nicholas’s performance of You Never Give Me Your Money was nicely done.

This episode seemed to primarily exist to advertise the Chitwood show but, as I’ve stated before, I’ve always liked fast cars and dramatic stunts.  What can I say?  I’m a Southern girl, it’s in my blood.  The idea of a band robbing tourists to pay for its album was actually kind of interesting, even if the episode didn’t really do much with it.  Paul Nicholas was a bit more charismatic than the typical CHiPs co-star.

In other words, this episode …. hey, it was okay!

Horror Song of the Day: The Shape Returns “Halloween 2018” (by John Carpenter, Cody Carpenter and Daniel Davies)

Posted on by Arleigh

Halloween

Today we see the wide release of David Gordon-Green’s sequel to John Carpenter’s Halloween. A film that’s a direct sequel to the horror classic, David Gordon-Green was able to bring in John Carpenter himself to compose the film’s score just as he did for the original film.

This time around, Carpenter is accompanied this time around by his son, Cody Carpenter, and godson, Daniel Davies. So, we have three generations with the original Halloween in their DNA attempting to improve or, at the very least, not make the score to this official sequel sound like just a copy and paste of the original score.

I would say, after listening to the full score a couple times, that these trio have succeeded where others have failed in scoring the other films in the franchise. My favorite track from this new score has to be the one titled, “The Shape Returns.”

With more modern electronic and synthesizer equipment available for use, Carpenter and his helpers were able to take the main Halloween theme and give it a more modern, angrier and menacing (if that’s even possible) sound for “The Shape Returns.”

Trailer: Halloween

Posted on by Arleigh

Halloween 2018

October 19, 2018. Keep that date in mind.

It’s the date for the latest entry to the Halloween franchise. It’s to be a sequel to the original film. It will also discard every other Halloween sequel ever made. So, for those who are so anti-remake/reboot this should alleviate any of those triggers.

David Gordon Green (who co-wrote this sequel with Danny McBride and Jeff Fradley) directs this sequel as a continuation of the events which happened with the original film. A follow-up that’s 40 years in the making, literally.

So, once again, remember October 19th and make sure to check this film out. I have a sneaking suspicion that it’ll be the true sequel to Carpenter’s classic.